Last Friday we went to the VFW with some friends and listened to some outstanding music and devoured some pretty darn good fish fry. If someone would have told me then what this Friday would look like, I wouldn’t have believed it. Not in a million years.

My mom went to Europe for a month and got back on Saturday night. Immediately after seeing her, Tyler and I were alarmed. She looked like she had aged 10 years since she left. She seemed confused and unsteady on her feet. She  was repeating everything she was saying, she wasn’t listening well, and in the days to come, we noticed she wasn’t taking as much care in her appearance, she just wasn’t my mom. She also was not listening to me one little bit when I voiced my concern. Luckily she went to her water aerobics class on Wednesday and one of her friends, Louise Hastings (a big thank you to Louise!), noticed the changes and called her at home later and talked to her about it. And then the lightbulb went on.

On Wednesday night I got a phone call at 3:15 a.m. My mom thought maybe she had a stroke and asked me to come get her and take her to TMC. She didn’t want to call an ambulance and have them take her to UMC. No offense to UMC….First of all the staff in the ER is amazing. Dr. Brian Tenelshof could not have been more caring and kind. (He even gave me the code to get in the back entrance) He called me in to his office and showed me the cat scan and explained what was happening. Unfortunately it was not a stroke, it was two tumors. One is quite large and is causing pressure which was causing the symptoms, and a smaller one, which is a little deeper and is inoperable. He decided to keep her in the ER until Dr Schroeder was on call in neurosurgery, because he says he’s the best. After all the CT scans, and MRI’s and neurologists, it was determined that she has multicentric glioma. 98% of which are malignant. So, tomorrow morning she is having brain surgery. After that, she will probably go to a rehabilitation center for a week or two for physical and occupational therapy and radiation and possibly chemo as well. For now she is in room 866 with a beautiful view of a lovely courtyard and is being cared for by a team of sweet nurses and techs that are keeping her comfortable.

Jenna flew in from Texas this morning, Tyler cancelled his San Diego trip, we cancelled our Texas trip and we are circling the wagons and ready for this battle. Her attitude is fantastic! She is positive and optimistic and we are all trying to follow her lead and not get too scared or think about worst case scenarios, which I tend to do sometimes. She is not done here yet and we expect her to pull through with flying colors. Her hospital room has been like party central with friends and family coming and going from before 7 a.m until after 9 at night with countless phone calls and face time with family in Germany. She is definitely feeling the love.

On a side note…….While mom was in Germany, her brother Hans and she had a bit of a falling out. Which is a kind way of saying he was a total dick. As we were in the ER she said, Hans is gonna feel like shit now. (Which is actually questionable, but one can hope). I said boy you won’t stop at anything to get even and make a point. We both laughed like crazy. Now she decided to name the tumor Hans (she does hold a grudge), and he is being removed. Once and for all!

The outpouring of kind words, offers to help, positive thoughts and prayers from so many wonderful people in our lives has been amazing (even though most of my friends realize I’m not a prayer kind of person, I will take any prayers and positive energy you can send our way). You have no idea how much it means to all of us!